What if
the Government Took Over Baseball (Satire)
By Mike Fak
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[April 13, 2011]
Well baseball
season is upon us and that always warms my heart. More importantly,
baseball season means the weather will also start warming my feet
which have been frozen for the past 3 months. Barry Bonds court case
is in the sports news of course. The reason Bonds is in court is
because he lied to a federal grand jury. It seems with all the mess
in Washington these days, the feds still have time to try and clean
up baseball rather than use the broom on their own bureaucratic
dirt.
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Reading about the trial, I asked myself: "What would happen to
baseball if the government took the sport over entirely?” Here are
some of the things I believe would happen.
There will be no records kept of anyone stealing a base. One of the
umpires will make a statement to the sportswriters that to their
knowledge no such theft occurred and if one did neither they nor
anyone in their political party had any knowledge or involvement in
the larceny.
Baseballs will be let out to the lowest bidder. That means the
current $9.00 per ball price will go up to approximately $1253.00
each, just slightly less than a government hammer or toilet seat.
It will still be three strikes and you're out unless the batter and
umpire are from the same political party and then a batter might be
allowed several more mistakes at the plate without any repercussions
or sanctions by an umpire.
Instant replay will not be allowed. In fact at the end of each game
all audio and video records of the game will be destroyed with both
parties issuing statements that to the best of their recollections
the game never happened.
Batting averages will be kept by the department of defense which
will cause them to skyrocket. When questioned how someone with 3
hits in 75 at bats can have a 400 batting average, the defense
department will convene a multi-million dollar panel to look into
the matter but never report their findings..
Umpires will be allowed to carry shopping bags to prevent money, and
checks from flying around the ballpark. The umpires will instruct
reporters that their receiving money just before they made a call
had no bearing on how they ruled.
[to top of second
column]
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All equipment in the game from mitts to bats to cup protection will
cost a thousand fold more than it does at any sporting goods store
and will be of shoddy material, construction and workmanship. The
manufactures of this equipment will be continually sanctioned and
fined but those fines will never be collected as they continue to
make more shoddy equipment.
To cut costs, umpire calls at second base and third base will be
outsourced to India via a multi million dollar satellite system that
frequently will break down.
An umpire's decision will immediately have commentary by several
pundits who will argue over the umpire's politics with no regard or
interest in determining the accuracy of the call.
There will be no foul poles so that a baseball hit down the line
will be subject to interpretation if it is left or right in its
travel.
The baseball rule book will be increased from 417 pages to a volume
requiring the entire 17th floor of the Library of Congress. This
will have to be built at taxpayer expense since there currently
isn't a 17th floor.
All food vending services will be let out to Halliburton causing a
hot dog and beer to cost $189.95
Yeh, let's get the government involved in baseball.
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